Hey Hollywood, Where are the Women?
Vatsala Ramanan, Margaret Bassney, and Emma Kornberg
Date: May 8, 2019
With the recent release of Captain Marvel, young women are discussing the importance of having strong, badass female characters in popular films. Even so much as ten years ago, a female lead like Carol Danvers would have been unthinkable. With this in mind, we wondered what female representation in Hollywood actually looks like and how it has changed over time.
Is Hollywood the teacup that contains society’s storm?
In the past twenty years, women in the United States have made great strides towards equality and representation. In 2007, Representative Nancy Pelosi became the first female speaker of the House, while in 2016, Hillary Clinton became the first female presidential candidate nominated by a major political party. In 2009, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act helped women file government complaints for pay discrimination, and in 2013, women first entered combat positions in the U.S. military. With all these monumental successes, one would expect a reflection of this with positive female representation in popular media and increased appreciation for such forms of entertainment. However, does this hold true in reality?
Although we see that women have made great strides, there still exists bias against them. For example, many people did not vote Hillary Clinton for president simply because she was a woman. We may expect Hollywood to mirror this general political sentiment. When more women joined Washington, a male backlash likely contributed to Hillary Clinton’s loss. Similarly, an increase in female representation in media may lead to a male backlash and ratings may ultimately fall. Because of this, we predict that when the representation of women in movies increases over the years, ratings from the Internet Movie Database, or the IMDB, will fall.
But, wait, how do you measure female representation?
Before looking at the data, we must define the key terms of our investigation…
Female representation is a rather subjective concept. So, to determine whether movies portray women with substantial importance, we refer to the Mako Mori test, which is named after Pacific Rim character Mako Mori. The rules of the test are that (1) the movie must have at least one female character, (2) that character must get her own narrative arc, and (3) the arc cannot be dependent on the man’s story. While people still argue over whether or not “Pacific Rim” was feminist or not, the test has great potential.
Examples
Emma Stone’s character from the 2016 movie La La Land passes the test as she has an independent narrative arc which focuses on her ambitions to be an actor. Here’s a scene from the movie showing this:
However, the movie O Brother Where Art Thou? fails the test. As shown in the scene below, the women do nothing more than seduce the male protagonists of the movie and do not have independent goals and aims. In this scene, the great actress Holly Hunter plays Penny, a character who is seen as property by the male character Everett.
What data are we are looking at?
Let us consider the top ten PG-13 rated movies produced in the years 2000, 2008 and 2016, from the IMDB. Given that media representation most affects young, developing minds, PG-13 rated movies are integral to this investigation as their target audience, middle school-aged teenagers, are beginning to explore their sexuality and identity. With this, female representation in popular media is deeply influential in the [development of the sense of self] (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-on-screen-representation-matters_n_58aeae96e4b01406012fe49d). Furthermore, the way women are represented in these movies affects how young females view themselves and how young males view them, bringing the issue into the real world. As we examine today’s media representation and its change over time, the three years of focus are key because they are each roughly a generation apart, and can thus help assess the progress made. Finally, we examine English language films as we focus on Hollywood, a structure that produces majority English films. Additionally, these films are most familiar to us and, you, our readers.
So, what’s the truth? What does the data say?
In the past two decades, female representation has increased between 2000 and 2016. In 2000, 2 of the top 10 movies passed the test, then 2 of 10 again in 2008, and finally 7 of ten in 2016. In this, there is no steady rise in media representation, and rather more of a recent jump. This may have to do with the advent of social media in which women are easily able to access platforms where their voices can be heard. Thus, women could be better able to advocate for what they want to see in Hollywood.
Does this rise in female representation in popular films correlate with falling ratings? Although there is some speculative evidence that suggests this is a possibility, the data shows that IMDB ratings have risen along with increased media representation. In 2000, the two movies with female representation were rated lower than the movies that did not have any. Then, in 2008, one of the two movies with female representation shared a 9.0, the highest IMDB rating that year, with The Dark Knight, a movie that did not have any positive female representation. Finally, in 2016, the movies with female representation had comparable, if not higher, ratings as the movies without female representation had. This positive correlation in representation and ratings may be because women enjoy movies they see themselves positively represented in and so they give the movies higher ratings.
But…wait…
Although we said that the data shows that there has been a general increase in female representation in PG-13 movies over the years, it cannot be forgotten that we only looked at the top rated movies from the IMDB. The scope of our data was fairly limited, given the parameters we set. However, IMDB ratings are based on popularity and as it is the largest movie database platform, these ratings likely indicate how audiences and society at large feel about the films. Therefore, it is fair to assess that there has been an increase in female representation in PG-13 movies.
It could also be argued that increased female representation does not correlate with higher IMDB ratings as outside factors play a role. Between the years 2000 and 2016, numerous technological and political changes occurred. As a result, the ratings for all the movies, not just the ones with women, rose. This can be seen in the data as the highest movie rating in 2000 was 7.8, while in 2016 it was a much higher 8.8.
However, if increased ratings are a consequence of larger societal changes, then the data would show a relatively constant increase in ratings among all movies. Instead, we see that ratings for movies with substantial female representation are increasing at a higher rate than those without representation. Given that the only differences among the movies is the representation of women, it cannot be said that female representation does not impact ratings.
So where do we go from here?
We’ve seen that Hollywood is slowly beginning to embrace the value of strong female characters in cinema. Nonetheless, there is a long way to go in terms of industry inclusivity – we need to see more people of color, LGBTQ+ folks, and characters of many other minority groups who make up integral parts of our country. Here’s to hoping that change and growth continue to happen! On that note, take this quiz and find out which badass Hollywood female character you are!
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